Smoke and Mirrors
by bugsfic
Summary: Dana Scully gave up her son to save the world from an alien invasion. But 2012 came and went. Now the answers are revealed.


_How to describe this story? A post-colonization story with no colonization? Something like that. Post-I Want to Believe, will be novel-length when it's done. Disturbing imagery, violence, and occasional veers into M-rated secksy times. Chapters will have warnings._

xox

/I asked that girl to make this sandwich on twelve grain, not this crap they call whole wheat bread/

Lilac bush, needs to be trimmed, she wanted it trimmed but he never got around to it and now it's too late-going to bloom soon.

Alarm box, hiding place here, right here, careful, get the code right, ping, ping, ping, ping, no alarm now...Gate needs oiling, always needs oiling, climb over, yes, yeah, can do!

/Ten more minutes to eat this, read Kyle's chart, talk to his parents, somehow fit in before that damn meeting. Why do I have to go to these meetings, tea, I need tea/

Too much rain this spring, she doesn't like the rain, rain on the windows, rain on the roof, mud, muck, dirty shoes—hate mud between toes.

Not the front door, surely he's listening for the front door,waiting for her, back door, kitchen door, careful for the squeak. Past office door, closed, good, music playing, stay quiet, quiet as a rat on the hunt.

Gun is in the box, the old box, the box with the wrinkled lid, faded label, first gun box out of Quantico. Good luck, not too great luck, wishes she'd had better luck. Bullets kept in small box. Careful, careful, don't drop one. They ping, they ring, they'll rattle around, roll under the couch.

/Never enough damn time. Thought I had time under control. Should just go home if I can't do this job right. Take a really long nap with Mulder. He likes naps in the afternoon, naps after milk and cookies-No. No more naps with Mulder. Time's up-time to go./

Door knob stuck. Carefully, very careful, push open. Need both hands for big gun. Gun the color of the back of the eyelids. This was what a gun felt like. Heavy. Dark.

"Mulder, show me your hands."

"Scul—" He turns too fast. Here, real, a breath away, he is too big. She thinks he's too big sometimes too, even after all these years.

Remember all the right words. "Sit back down. And show me your hands."

"Okay. Nothing to get worried about."

"I'm not worried. I'm not afraid. I don't feel anything."

Big mouth, wide mouth, cavern. Too pretty for a man-an old man. A man old enough to be the doctor, father, therapist. Plump lips turn inside out. He'll eat his lips. Then he can't talk.

/Should've told him I know. That I've seen the emails. He wants me to talk; tell him what's going on. I could tell him. But If I'd started talking, I would never stop/

"Fuckin' stay still! Don't do anything!"

"I'm not. Just tell me what you want."

"The phone. Call Scully."

Flat eyes. Beer bottle color. Suddenly quick, fast, flight. Show him the gun again. Put it close. Let him smell the oil.

"There's no need for that. Whatever you want, I can help you."

"I want Scully. Call her and tell her that you need her to come home now. Tell her you're sick. Tell her the house's on fire."

"What's your name?"

"Call Scully."

"I'd like to know who you are, please."

"If you don't call, I'll dial, and when she answers, shoot you in the head. She'll come then."

He chews at the lip. It would bust like a strawberry under the heel.

"We don't need you. I'm just being nice. Scully likes you. Scully loves you. Scully needs you."

He looks away. "She won't come. She's moved out."

"She'll come. Call."

He picks up the phone, slow like picking the scabs off until the blood bubbles.

Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch. The right numbers; maybe this will work.

/Damn phone-it's Mulder. Don't need this right now. I don't have anything to say./

He's watching. He can see the sweat on the palms. Can count the seconds until the gun slips from the wet hands. Answer, answer—She answers.

"Dana, it's me—"

Hard enough to hear his skull crackle. That hard. Hard enough, but not too hard.

"That was pretty stupid, Mulder. But now she'll know there's a problem, won't she? She doesn't like to hear you scream."

He can wait on the floor. He'll stay cool that way, cold as a fish off the line, now on the bottom of the boat.

/Pick up, Mulder! Dammit! What have you gotten us into? When I thought it was over. Make the excuses, say the lies. Routine, even after all these years./

x

Mulder decided that he should try harder to get those dust bunnies from under his desk. Get down on his knees, not expect the Swifter to catch them all.

"Slow. Keep hands in view. Back into the chair."

His office chair seemed a long way up from his present position. Had to try though. Crazy little girl had a gun.

When he looked at the clock, she gave him an update: "We have a little over 10 minutes. Sit still."

He gingerly felt the lump on his brow and his fingers came back bloody. There was a crusty stream along his jawline, but he left that alone. "Let's try this again. Who are you? What do you want?" he said. He was asking to make conversation. He had a pretty good idea who she was, or at least what she was.

Her right eye twitched in the socket. Before she had struck him, it had been the left doing all the wandering. "What does it matter?"

The ten minutes were ticking away. He had to get the gun from her. If for no other reason than it was Scully's piece, and losing it would be one more thing for her to be pissed about.

"I like to know who's trying to kill me."

The girl smiled with small, dirty teeth. "Mika."

"That's an interesting name." Just keep talking, Mulder told himself, even as she sneered.

"It's not mine. The family gave me the name. Not mine," Mika repeated. Her lips moved sideways instead of opening and closing as with normal speech.

Meth or straightforward psychosis? he wondered.

"What's your real name then?"

He'd apparently exhausted her good will. "Shut up," she said in her raspy, unhealthy voice.

Big eyes, blue and wide-set. Bleached blonde wavy hair, greasy, slipped down the sides of her skull, with a large patch of green dye over her left ear. Small, compact frame, balanced on the balls of her feet like a gymnast poised to leap, wide shoulders ready to catch the beam. And that mouth, juicy red and never still, even when she wasn't speaking. Three lip piercings rattled and trembled. The barbell-like eyebrow piercings undulated like stiff corn stalks in a windy field.

His own body was heavy in the chair as though the weight of Scully's old service weapon was holding him down. He dared to look at the clock again. Not much time left. He had to disarm this girl.

"Why do you want us? Tell me what this is about."

Scorn was his reply: "Don't need you. Only her." Her head twitched. "Get out into the living room. I don't like being in a cage."

She followed close enough not to miss with a shot from the hip, but far enough away to keep out of his reach. He tried stumbling, hoping to trigger her reflexes to grab him, but she just let him fall in a heap.

"My head's still light," he said, feeling like an idiot as he scrambled back to his feet.

He had gotten a good look at her dirty white flats and skinny ankles while he was down there, and her skin was laced with healed razor slashes. Easing into a chair, he asked, "How old are you, Mika? Seventeen? Eighteen?"

She didn't answer, leaning against the sofa and glaring down her nose at him. Mulder was used to juvenile offenders saying that they don't care what he has to say but he can see that she truly didn't.

"I help a lot of kids like you, Mika. Maybe you know that."

"I know you only work part-time. I know she practically had to put this gun to your head to get you to take a job. I know it's the first job you've had in a really long time."

Pissed off, as pissed as he was when Scully looked around his office last year and said, 'You know, all this papering the walls with strips of newspaper? You're reminding me of Tooms making his nest.'

"Yes, that's true. It's been a couple of decades since I've worked in a clinical situation. But it's exciting and rewarding assisting young people like you."

"There're no _young people_ like me."

The tuna on rye that he'd eaten for lunch flipped over in his stomach. No, the teen gangbangers and underage dimebag dealers who passed through his office at the correction center had nothing on this girl. Didn't like the look of those eyes—seen ones like that too many times before, and never in circumstances that resolved themselves without him bleeding and Scully's face blank and hard with fear. He was already breathing too rapidly.

Mika's head jerked up, eyes off him for the first time since she had made her appearance. "She drove really fast. You must remain quiet."

"I will. Just remember, when bullets start flying, they tend to hit things."

"I won't hurt Scully."

Mika stood, her gaze scanning the walls of the house as though tracking the woman creeping along the row of azalea bushes that lined the yard.

"You're the first thing I'll shoot if you move. I don't need you anymore."

She moved to the kitchen, stooped at the waist so she couldn't be seen through the windows. The gun remained pointed in Mulder's direction the entire time.

But Mulder watched too, knowing just how Scully would enter, plotting when to call out his warning. He'd only have one chance.

Mika crouched by the back door, reaching for the handle. As a shot splintered the lower panel, the girl darted out of the way. Fragments blew inward, and the bullet flew by Mulder's knee, but he still yelled, "Scully!" as he ran forward.

Scully's gaze met Mulder's and read the shift of his eyes. She swung to her left to confront Mika, their guns muzzle to muzzle in a perverse kiss.

Mika gave another of her empty smiles. "Careful, the Mother," she mouthed.

x

Scully sat at the kitchen table, keeping her features still but her eyes never left the young woman, waiting for the storm to pass. Mika sobbed uncontrollably, incapable of speech. The gun secured in his pants' waist, Mulder washed the dried blood from his face, then rattled around in the freezer for some ice to fill a pack for his forehead.

The girl finally spoke. "I had to come. I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" Scully could barely push her voice to above a whisper.

"Always trouble. Cause trouble. No one wants me around."

Leaning against the counter, Mulder reminded Scully of a somber gargoyle watching the human drama from high above. She noticed the sink full of dirty dishes and started to say something before jerking her attention back to their intruder.

"How were you able to find us?" asked Scully. The old familiar paranoia washed over her like submerging in a tub of scalding water.

"I looked at your mail." It was hard to comprehend Mika through her tears.

"I don't understand." Scully's brow creased. "You would have to come here to look at our mail."

Mika covered her eyes with her balled, grubby fists. "I see what you see. I hear what you think."

Mulder moves behind Scully, gripping her chair. She eased forward so that he couldn't touch her.

"Telepathy?" he asked but neither woman replied.

Scully pleaded: "Talk to us—"

"Mika," said Mulder. "Her name is Mika."

Scully reached out, tentative as one picks through poison ivy, and tugged Mika's arms gently down.

Mika went silent, with lips twitching and eyes darting. Then she burst out, "I should take a pill, my meds, one of the pretty red capsules." She rooted through her pockets, then triumphantly lay a rainbow of colored capsules on the tabletop, picking out two red ones.

Mulder filled a glass of water but didn't give it to her. "Where did you get those pills? What are they for?"

"What are they not for? What isn't wrong with me? They say. So they say. What they want," she sputtered.

Mulder held the glass close and waited.

"Doctor Larkin, Doctor Conrad, nice Doctor Singh," she babbled. "A green one when I see things which are scary. The inside of bodies and brains and broken mouths-"

Scully clenched her jaw. So many autopsies for a child to watch.

"A blue one when I see things no little girl should know about yet-" She looked slyly at Mulder, then continued: "A red one when I can't stop thinking, thinking, thinking..."

"Take just one," Scully said. After she nodded at Mulder, he passed the water to Mika. The girl gulped down her medication greedily. Scully carefully moved the remaining pills to her side of the table. "You can see what I see—all the time?" she asked quietly.

"I can make it go away, sometimes. I can't choose to see when I want to," Mika muttered angrily. "But mostly I can't stop it. I see my world and your world and their worlds-"

"There are others." The way Scully said it wasn't a question.

"Another girl who's boring and stupid and just goes to school and doesn't even care about boys. Another girl who fucks a lot and likes to do her hair and hates her parents, she's fun to watch," gasped out Mika.

"More?" asked Mulder since Scully couldn't speak.

"There were when I was little, but they went dark years ago." Mika's fingers danced across the table toward her pills. Scully eased them further out of her reach.

"Any others?" Scully dared to whisper.

Mika closed her eyes and finally told her secret. "His world."

Scully raised her face to keep her tears from spilling. "William."

"Sammy. My Mom calls me Samuel but you can call me Sam. Sammo, you dork!" bellowed Mika.

Mulder dared to put his hands gently on Scully's shoulders. She gave a short nod, replying to his unspoken question. Her son's christening and that moment when the priest asked for the full name. Sudden shock at realizing she had no middle name. Saying it without hesitation. Later wondering if naming a child for two dead men and a tragic girl was like putting a curse on his head.

"What's happened?" Scully forced herself to ask because Mulder wouldn't, her hand creeping to cover his on her shoulder. This girl didn't come for some twisted family reunion. She was an albatross,on shore after eighteen years, settling her own curse around Scully's neck.

"There was a gun in his face, a gunshot—" Mika looked at the weapon tucked in Mulder's waistband before turning her tragic gaze back to Scully. "I'm sorry, the Mother. He's dark now too."

~ end Chapter One


End file.
